Troubled Waters In The North Sea

ON the Anorak Forums: A MAJOR £4m operation to airlift more than 500 workers from a North Sea flotel accommodation platform attached to an oil rig was wound down yesterday afternoon after a suspected bomb threat turned out to be mistaken.

The incident was sparked after a woman was heard making comments thought to pose a security risk on the Safe Scandinavia.

It was the biggest evacuation attempt in the history of North Sea operations but was quickly stood down and criticised as an “over-reaction” by industry figures after it emerged that the 23-year-old woman,a worker on the rig and now under medical care, did not pose a security risk.

The rescue involved 14 private and military helicopters working flat out far out into the North Sea North East of Aberdeen through the early hours of Sunday morning to airlift 650 personnel to other rigs. I particularly liked this oil industry example of doublespeak when a spokesperson described the frantic heliports activity as “controlled down-manning”.
Well be fair, the uncontrolled evacuations will probably have been unpleasantly obvious as well as odorous. There would have 650 sphincters working overtime on preventing emergency evacuation.

There was massive broadcast news coverage (of the airlifts not the bowel movements).

Two major points HAVE to be answered: Why was a potential security risk such as the gynaecological (sic) balance of a member of personnel not picked up earlier in any training/interview process. This could turn out to be the most expensive result of PMT since Helen of Troy told her first husband to go and play with his army because she had a splitting headache and fancied a robust Paris excursion, and….

How on earth did anyone wake the Scottish freelance broadcast crews after Scotland’s rugby team had been so thoroughly grubbled by the Welsh in Cardiff?
Freelancers are not known to be slow about drowning sorrows excessively deeply.

I’ll get me claymore and tin hat for when Anorak’s female Moderators clock on should I?

The whole incident was later claimed to be the nightmare it actually was:

See: Nightmare sparks rescue

Anorak

Posted: 11th, February 2008 | In: Twitterings Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink